


wish you were here

by naakahara_writes



Series: keep the lights down low for me [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Comfort, Feelings, Insomnia, Insomniac Draco Malfoy, Light Angst, M/M, Nightmares, Tea Time and Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-05-13 21:59:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19259959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naakahara_writes/pseuds/naakahara_writes
Summary: Harry gets nightmares. Draco Malfoy has insomnia. Luckily, the kitchens at Hogwarts are always stocked with tea, warm lamplight, and auspicious meetings.





	wish you were here

Nightmares. 

He got them - didn’t everyone? - but on nights like these, Harry often wondered if the nightmares of witches and wizards were more potent; more - well, magical, than those of Muggles. He flipped a glance at the adjacent bed, where Ron’s hair was strewn, perfectly still, like a fiery shock across his pillow. Across the room, everyone else was sleeping soundly. 

Harry sighed. 

Maybe it was just him. 

He stared at the ceiling, although unable to really see it, and replayed the dream like a broken record. There had been a tall, shadowy man, he remembered, and a tidal wave of spiders. Harry wasn’t particularly scared of spiders - not like Ron was, yet there was something about these dream-spiders… And snakes, he thought with a shudder. There had been snakes. His skin prickled, the dormitory ceiling morphing into a fanged, gaping maw - 

Harry sighed again. 

Scrubbed a hand across his face, wincing as he felt a prickle of teenage stubble, and made a mental note to cast a quick shaving charm the next day. 

Then he carefully pushed his bedcovers aside, bare feet landing against springy carpet. Careful not to wake Ron - or anyone else enjoying pleasant, spider-free dreams, Harry retrieved his Invisibility Cloak, located a pair of slippers, and stole quietly across the room. 

He wasn’t exactly sure where he wanted to go, but he was going nonetheless. 

\- -

Due to an auspicious pathway of lit torches - or, possibly, his grumbling and unhappy stomach - Harry found himself in the Hogwarts kitchens, Invisibility Cloak sprawled haphazardly across a nearby countertop as he rifled though the cabinets for tea bags. 

He’d never drank much tea at home, never really been allowed, but the Weasleys kept an abundance of it, pantry always stocked with the poignant leaves even when their funds dipped alarmingly low. To the Weasleys, it seemed, tea was a perfect constant, a shoulder to rest one’s weary head upon when the rest of the world had fallen away. 

Harry could really use that shoulder right now. 

He selected a familiar box, filled the kettle appropriately, and settled back against a countertop to wait. 

Not for the first time, though, Harry wished someone - anyone - else, could understand his plight; wished there was another insomniac or fellow-nightmare-sufferer frustrated enough to search the Hogwarts kitchens for refuge. On nights like these, Harry often convinced himself there had to be others at Hogwarts, people who equated a good night’s sleep with winning the lottery, but perhaps they were all smart enough to stay in bed and, at least, earn a little bit of rest. Harry knew his nightmares tended to be unique, but surely there was someone - 

The teapot offered a deafening screech, which seemed even louder than usual in the empty kitchen. 

Harry jumped. 

His heart did, too. 

He saw that now-familiar, elongated shadow of a man, floating in his vision for the briefest second, before Harry blinked, rubbed his elbow from where he had knocked it against a cabinet, and laughed ruefully. 

“Just the teapot,” he told himself, pouring the boiling water carefully into a mug. “Just the teapot, Harry.” 

“Well, isn’t this my lucky night?” 

For the second time, Harry jumped; luckily, he had set the teapot aside just a few seconds prior. Unluckily, his hand was still wrapped around the mug. 

“Not only,” continued Draco Malfoy, his usual drawl muddled by sleep and something - else, “am I unable to get more than three bloody hours of sleep, I get to find none other than Harry Potter gone completely off his rocker, talking to the voices in his head.” 

“Oh, shove it, Malfoy,” Harry snapped, attempting to scrub the scalding water from his bare wrist. “What’re you doing here, anyway?” 

“I told you,” Malfoy snapped back. “Merlin, Potter, would it kill you to pay attention for once in your life?” 

Having narrowly avoided a third-degree burn, Harry set the offending mug aside, rinsed his hand briefly under cool water, and turned back to Malfoy, ready to make a scathing comment or perform a Banishing Spell - whatever his sleep-deprived brain could spit out in the moment - before his eyes caught up with the rest of him, and he forgot about nearly everything up until right now, and stared. 

To be honest, he was not sure how he’d missed this all before. 

This, of course, being Draco Malfoy - Draco with his hair mussed and spiky and unkempt (resembling Harry’s quite a bit, although neither of them wanted to acknowledge it); Draco with a deep, emerald green bathrobe, untied and fluttering slightly behind him like some kind of regal cape; Draco with a simple black T-shirt and sweatpants, the former loose around his neck and the latter somewhat tight around his hips. 

Draco, who finally cut across Harry’s derailed train of thinking with a painfully familiar sneer: “You don’t look any better, Potter, so don’t you dare say a word.” 

Harry blinked. 

Falling back into his body with a painful jolt, uncomfortably aware of the burn on his cheeks. 

“Finally,” said Malfoy, arms crossed - self-consciously, if Draco Malfoy could ever manage such an emotion. “You’re acting even more thickheaded than usual.” 

“Yeah, well, it’s been a bit of a long night.” 

Harry regretted these words as soon as they left his mouth. Even though Malfoy a nuisance at best - and, considerably, one of the last people he wanted to see at two in the morning - he had also been an excellent distraction. 

Right up until now, that is. 

Malfoy had the gall to look at least a tick sympathetic. “Never thought we’d have something in common,” he muttered, “but you and me, both, Potter.” 

Then he looked loathe to have admitted something like that at all. 

“Yeah?” Harry said. “Nightmares or insomnia?” 

“Why would I tell you?” 

There it was - the reminder. Stark and ever present. 

The reminder that Draco was Draco Malfoy and Harry was Harry Potter. That no matter what they had in common, they could never have a civil conversation before one of them became inevitably possessed with the urge to act like a complete bastard. 

“Yeah,” said Harry, turning to hide his burning face and also to grab his now-lukewarm tea - “Yeah, okay.” He brushed by Malfoy, silk across bare skin for the briefest moment. “See you around, Malfoy.” 

Malfoy didn’t say anything. 

Harry was halfway out of the kitchen when he realized, stupidly, that he’d left the Invisibility Cloak. And there was no use trying to run off without it, because Merlin knows what Malfoy would do with a tool - torture device, in his hands - like that. 

Harry steeled himself. 

And jumped for the third time when a hand landed on his arm, unfamiliar fingers digging in slightly. 

“Whoa, Potter,” said Malfoy, voice still composed despite everything - Merlin, how Harry hated him sometimes. “A little jumpy tonight, aren’t we?” 

Through gritted teeth: “What do you want, Malfoy?” 

“You left something,” Malfoy said, “on the counter.” 

“I know.” 

“And - “ He dropped his hand, a little too abruptly. “Insomnia.” 

“What?” 

“I get insomnia, Potter.” 

“Oh.” 

Harry turned, just enough to see Malfoy’s face. Up close, he could see Malfoy was telling the truth; exhaustion lines carved in his forehead, and blue smudges tucked underneath his eyes. 

“D’you,” Harry started, and then stopped. 

Malfoy raised an eyebrow. 

“Do you want some tea?” 

This time, Malfoy laughed - a sharp, bitter thing. “Tea’s never helped.” 

“Doesn’t help me, either,” Harry said. “So, do you want some?” 

He thought about it for a second. “I - suppose it couldn't hurt.” 

They returned to the kitchen, Malfoy watching wordlessly as Harry filled another kettle, selected a tea bag, and retrieved a fresh mug. “What about you?” asked Malfoy at length, eyeing the kettle as Harry fiddled with it. 

“What about me?” 

“Same question.” 

“Oh.” Harry watched, out of the corner of his eye, as Malfoy braced his hands on the counter and hopped lightly on top of it, spine curved gently against a set of opaque cabinets. “Nightmares.” 

“Figured.” 

Harry leaned against the stove, facing Malfoy. “I don’t really want to talk about them.” 

“I don’t blame you," said Malfoy frankly. 

Silence - for a moment. This didn’t really surprise Harry, probably because, although he and Malfoy had talked to each other plenty of times, they’d never really had a conversation. Not like this. 

Not in a warmly lit kitchen, in the middle of the night, as a tea kettle hummed pleasantly. 

And definitely not when both of them were wearing their pajamas. 

“It started when I was eight,” Malfoy said, shocking Harry out of his reverie. 

“Your insomnia?” he said. 

“What do you think, Potter?” 

At least that’s somewhat normal. 

“Nothing happened,” Malfoy added, leaning his head back slightly. His shirt collar dips down, collarbones and Adam’s apple displayed sharply. “There wasn’t any good reason. My parents tried everything - took me to St. Mungo’s, even. I drank all sorts of nasty potions; had all these charms, enchantments, cast around my bed for weeks. Nothing helped.” 

“What do you do?” 

“Usually?” Malfoy half-smiled, a strange, unfamiliar expression. “I just lie there.” 

Oh, and that was so not a good answer, because all of a sudden, Harry’s mind was flooded with high-resolution images of Draco Malfoy, sprawled across silken sheets the same color as his bathrobe, blonde hair spread across a pillow case. 

“But tonight was bad,” Malfoy continued, blissfully unaware of the battle raging through Harry’s brain. “I hadn't slept well for days, so I decided to go for a walk. No idea how I ended up here, of all places.” 

“Weird that you did,” said Harry. 

“Yeah,” said Malfoy. “Weird.” 

Weird weird weird. 

“What do you do?” Malfoy asked, shifting slightly, and Harry had to force himself back to the topic at hand with an effort. Then he shrugged. “Try to forget, I guess. Distract myself. I really don’t like thinking about it.” 

“It might help," started Malfoy slowly, "if you - " 

“Don’t,” interrupted Harry. Small but sharp. 

A small dash of color appeared, briefly, on the tips of Malfoy’s cheekbones. “Right.” 

The tea kettle whistled, a necessary distraction, and Harry busied himself with pouring the water into a mug. 

"Listen," he said at last, once Malfoy's hands were wrapped around the mug - and he really was about to say something, something deep and meaningful and soul-bearing to make up for everything Malfoy had shared, but all of a sudden Malfoy glanced up, locking eyes with Harry, and the bottom of Harry's stomach dropped out.

"I should get back," he said instead. 

Malfoy didn’t say anything.

Harry retrieved his Invisibility Cloak, drained the last of his now stone-cold tea, and turned, for the second time, to go. 

This time, though, he didn’t even make it out of Malfoy’s sight before - 

“Potter?” 

“Yeah?” 

“You should.” Malfoy stopped; dropped his eyes to the floor. “You should come here. Again. Tomorrow night.” 

Harry smiled. “Sure.” 

He tried to ignore how his heart jumped at the invitation, an Olympic pole vault inside his chest. 

“And thank you.” Malfoy paused again. “For - well, you know.” 

“No problem.” 

As he left the kitchen, Harry thought that maybe - despite all odds, just maybe - Draco Malfoy was the bathrobe-wearing, messy-haired, desperate insomniac refugee he’d needed. 

He passed the rest of the night in a dreamless sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> actually have no idea when this is supposed to take place. i was thinking maybe fifth year?? who knows. use your imagination. 
> 
> unbeta'd so watch out for grammar mistakes!!!


End file.
